So Low
by CloudCuckooLandHasAQueen
Summary: Molly's mad about Janine and loads of other things involving Sherlock, however, Sherlock's reason for why that is happens to further enrage her because for one thing, it's not right. He just doesn't get it. (Spoilers through HLV)


When Sherlock was shot, Molly didn't visit.

She was still so enraged by the drug use—and she was frightened. All she wanted to do was deal with the fact that she almost had to live with that being her last memory of him alone, and perhaps with her dear friends Frodo and Golem. She received the text from John, pressed her lips in a fine line, and returned her mobile to her pocket. He was alive. There was no need to cry yet. In fact, she was so angry about Janine, she hoped he would live just so she could yell and shriek and slap him all over again.

When Sherlock was meant to be shipped off to his death, Molly wasn't told.

There would be consequences, of course, for getting caught shooting a man, and Molly had come to terms with them, but the fact that she wasn't important enough—didn't count enough—to be told goodbye or perhaps his fate stung so much more than anything she ever encountered before. Being stood up several times, being rejected even when she tried to fit in the world around her, and _That _Christmas all paled in comparison to the hurt she felt. The only reason she knew was because John was a kind man. Of course, his exile didn't last with the stunt pulled, every screen displaying Moriarty's face and a creepy electronic voice repeating like a broken record. Of course he would be back if Moriarty was back.

When Sherlock arrived at Molly's flat, she had been reading some of the old tabloids.

Sighing, Molly stood and crossed the room silently, looking through the peephole before inevitably opening the door. He stood there, still and emotionless as ever and suddenly Molly was wondering why she ever really bothered with him at all. Sure she had a type and he filled it, but she wasn't going to let her life get wrecked by this man any longer. Tom wasn't the man for her, she knew that well, but at least Tom had the decency to know that there were lines that shouldn't be crossed.

"Molly, I'm aware that the circumstances of—"

"Quit with the posh talk and reach a bloody point." Molly snapped.

"You're still angry."

"And you're still stating the obvious." Molly slammed the door behind him, wincing as it rattled in its frame. She didn't mean to take out her frustrations on the poor innocent door and silently apologized to it. She turned around and sized him up, not quite fearlessly, but with enough vigor to give him pause as his eyes raked across the tabloids.

"Of course the relationship with Janine was—"

"Fake. God you're awful."

"Molly, just because I didn't inform you that the relationship I was engaged in wasn't real doesn't mean that you should be angry. Or was it that you were jealous and are secretly relieved? She wasn't important,"

He doesn't get it.

He never gets it.

Molly stepped back, letting out a low and hollow laugh, "Seriously? That's what you think I'm angry about when it comes to Janine? Bloody hell, Sherlock, you are really, really bad at deducing emotions. You can tell when someone's angry, and probably the subject of the anger, but you can't tell _why. _Yet you try anyway, and then you make inductions instead of deductions and it all just goes to shit for you and you don't even realize it!"

Sherlock seemed rather taken aback. Molly decided that this was a good sign as he gestured for her to go on. He treated her like a hormonal teenager or a bratty child having a tantrum, but Molly would have none of that. She lowered her voice to a normal tone, still slightly louder and more assertive than what she would consider her conversational voice and carried on.

"I'm mad because you used her."

"That's unfair as she used me as—"

"Sherlock. You _used _her. Used her like she was a bloody tissue and no matter what she did to get back at you, the fact that you don't give a rat's arse about it completely negates that revenge."

"Molly you only met the woman once I don't see how you could have such an emotional attach—"

"Sherlock bloody Holmes, shut the hell up and listen to me. You used her to get to someone else—someone more important." Realization finally seemed to light up his features, followed by a dark expression that Molly ignored as she continued, "That's—that's lower than I thought you'd ever stoop, Sherlock. I didn't mind the fake flirting to get to parts. I would have given them to you anyway. I didn't mind the lack of conversation because I'm not much of a talkative person, and when I am it usually ends in disaster—or I'm angry—and I didn't mind carrying your secret practically alone for two years. I cared when you didn't tell me you were leaving, of course, but that's not the most important thing right now, and I didn't care about your reasoning behind not telling John that Mary shot you but—"

"How did you know that?"

"Know what?"

"That Mary shot me. Did John tell you?"

Molly shrunk down a little, "No, Sherlock. It was kind of obvious. Greg said you couldn't tell him about the shooter, but you were obviously shot from the front and had a clear view and even with your mind being in overdrive from shock and focusing on not dying, you would have at least been able to give a vague description. You were protecting someone and who is the only person you've ever protected? John. And he'd be a mess if he had done it, so that leaves someone John loves. Harry can't shoot. So that left Mary." She shrugged, "I still don't see why that even matters, I trusted you knew what you were doing with that one—"

"Wrong."

"On what count?

"I've protected more people than just John and Mary, Molly."

Molly crossed her arms, "Like who?"

"Like you."

Molly sighed, her hands falling to her sides once more, feeling the manipulation coming on. He was about to say something that would make her forgive him. She raised her hand, "Sherlock. Why did you doing drugs—even for a case—make me angry?"

"Because I was ruining my mental capacities."

"Why did you not telling me you were leaving make me angry?"

"Because you thought it diminished your significance to me", Sherlock took her hand in his, tracing her wrist with the pad of his thumb, "—Which it didn't, by the way. You matter, Molly."

"And why did you dating Janine make me so furious that I couldn't see straight and didn't even visit you when you got shot?"

He winced, "Because to you, that unnecessarily makes me have another thing in common with James Moriarty—who did it to you without thought or regard for your feelings."

Molly nodded, giving him a small smile even as a couple tears were streaking down her face, "So why should I bother forgiving you?"

Sherlock didn't have a ready answer for that. He was still fixated on her hand as if it was the most fascinating specimen he had ever seen. It made her feel bared and exposed, but not in a way that made her feel vulnerable. He wasn't in attack mode, after all. Finally, he to her other hand, and encased both of them in his.

"Because you love me."

"Love without trust is crippled and painful." Molly Hooper stepped out of an engagement for Christ's sake. She could do without love and loving—especially him, for a time. Hearing the word from Sherlock's mouth sounded foreign and unfamiliar. If she wanted to, she could walk away. God she sounded just like a proper addict, now didn't she?

Her hands were at his mouth as he pressed a couple light kisses to her fingers, "You trusted me with Mary, despite your own clever deduction. You can always deduce me, Molly." He drew a shocked and silenced woman into his arms, "Because I need you. Especially after what we all saw on the telly."

"He can't possibly be back." Molly murmured, "I did his autopsy, it must be a copycat."

"It's still an issue." Sherlock gave her a final squeeze before stepping back, his hands still on her shoulders, "And there's one last reason I want you to forgive me Molly Hooper."

"And what's that?"

"I—" He faltered a bit, "I don't want to be like Moriarty." Quickly he leaned down and pressed a chaste and inexperienced kiss against her lips, lacking calculation in his impulse, "At all."


End file.
